STUDY OF GROWTH FACTORS IN THE CALLUS FRACTURE IN RATS

Abstract

In the last years there is an increase in the interest in the study of growth factors that take part in the process of consolidation of the fracture to be used as treatment. The different types of fixations modify the natural process of the fracture healing and the production of growth factors could also be affected. There is not evidence in the literature of the effect that the intramedullary reaming has on the osteogenesis. We did a study to analyse the effect of intramedullary reaming on the production of growth factors during the process of fracture healing in the femur of rats. We did a pospective study in San Carlos Clinical Hospital from Madrid in which was made a fracture on the femur of 64 adults rats type Sprague-Dawley. The rats were divided in two main groups; each group received one different treatment: 30 rats with intramedullary nail and 34 rats did not receive any treatment. The rats of each group were sacrificed in 4 different moments: at the 24th hour, 4th, 7th and 15th days after the fracture was done, and we measured the amount of growth factors that appeared in the callus fracture, by anatomopathology study. The group in which was done the intramedullar nailing recovered normal walk after surgery. In this group were found more production of BMP and PDGF compared to the control group but did not reveal any significant difference between the groups (p> 0,05). Differences about other growth factors as TGF were not found. We conclude that in the results we have taken, the increase on BMP and PDGF could be produced by the intramedullary reaming by the surgery technique but we would need more studies.